Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
DAVENPORT—10 defendants were listed in a suit filed by Jim and Sherri Keyes of Reardan against several county entities and employees Monday, Aug. 8 accusing the Assessor’s Office and Board of Equalization of various malpractices.
Named as defendants are assessor J Scott Liebing, appraiser Christine Tareski, Board of Equalization members Anne Filion, Dale Vaughan, Ralph Nachtigal and Jim Knapp, prosecuting attorney Adam Walser, Lincoln County, the Lincoln County Assessor’s Office and the Board of Equalization.
The suit alleges that the Assessor appraises and assesses property values “in an arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory manner” and asks that all property values in Lincoln County be reset to pre-2015 levels until the Assessor does reassessments “that are accurate as to true and fair value.”
“There is no merit to any claim that is made,” Walser said. “The assessor has no interest in doing that. There is no motivation for the assessor to unfairly value anyone’s property.”
The lawsuit also asks for a refund of all paid taxes for 2015 forward with a minimum 12% interest. However, the most expensive ask in the lawsuit is for damages of the value of every life given to defend the United States Constitution.
“That number would reasonably be in the trillions of dollars,” the filing claims.
Keyes is no stranger to filing lawsuits, records indicate. He most recently sued the county and Noxious Weed Board in Sept. 2009, a case that was dismissed in Nov. 2011. He also has eight lawsuits in the last 22 years filed in Spokane County according to the County Court Viewer, all of which ended in orders of destruction, often years after a lack of follow-up action.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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